Bodegas y Vinedos Balbaina - Vina Corrales Fino Sherry (bottled 2022)

THE WINE ADVOCATE: "The NV Fino Viña Corrales Pago Balbaína bottled in May 2022 shows different from the 2021 bottling, as the wine is influenced by the dry year and has more smokiness, flintstone and yeasty aromas. This is round and lush, with a buttery sensation in the texture and the textbook notes of esparto grass and wet chalk. The finish is bone-dry, tasty and almost salty. They are also adding the wine from Viña Corrales in Balbaína. I also sampled the wine from the solera as it is now, and it's impressive how the wine seems to have changed in one year and how the influence of the different yeasts is noticeable on the nose, with the influence of the Beticus yeasts in the smokiness. The 2022 saca contains 7,900 bottles."

DECANTER: "In some senses this fino Sherry is the answer to ‘what would white Pingus taste like’, since Sisseck’s hunt for a limestone vineyard to make a great Spanish white wine ultimately took him to Jerez. And there’s something very white Burgundy about the refined texture here: it’s been polished and buffed to a high sheen. The classic fino nutty-yeasty savouriness is there, too, but it whispers rather than shouts. Great tapering length. Such elegance."